Mr Axel Schlicht,
I am not an installation master but I think that I could try answering
some of your questions.
First a quick introduction.
The debian installer you used will probably be superceded by a new
installer that is being written from scratch, i.e. it is not an
improuvement of the dbootstrap code you are using. If you are courious
you could probably try it from CVS:
http://cvs.debian.org/debian-installer/
The second warning is that you are referring to errors that should be
addressed to different target:
- Linuxland, for the CD that you got,
- Debian, for the installation procedure,
- Kernel, for the problems about SoundBlaster and other modules.
Said that, I would reply to some of your points.
1. The documentation about the sb module and all its arguments is
/usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.18/Documentation/sound/Soundblaster
Of course the actual path will be different for a different kernel
version.
2. I think that you should not setup the network and audio card while
installing Debian. You should normally setup ONLY the modules you
need for the installation itself (like scsi drivers.)
3. To setup the modules after the installation of Debian you need to
create a file in /etc/modutils/. The files already there will be
useful for understanding how they work. You still have more
documentation on this in
/usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.18/Documentation/modules.txt
In that document you will find how to know what parameters a module
needs (/sbin/modinfo -p sb)
If you want to load some module at boot time, than insert its name in
/etc/modules.
4. About the cdrom mount point. I *think* that Debian have a 'preferred'
cdrom. Once you have a system set up, you should make a link from
your /dev/sr0 to /dev/cdrom. In this way every program that try to
access your cdrom will find it in /dev/cdrom regardless of which is
your real cdrom device (scsi, ide, ...)
The usual mount point for the cdrom in /cdrom. After Debian is
installed you usually find a line like this one in /etc/fstab
/dev/cdrom /cdrom iso9660 defaults,ro,user,exec,noauto
5. The ide-scsi. Some program require a SCSI device. The ide-scsi
software emulate the SCSI interface on an IDE device. If you need to
activate it then you have to load the module *AND* use an argument
during the loading of the linux kernel (i.e. in LILO or grub). If you
do not set the argument for ide-scsi during boot then you do not have
to worry about it. It is probably opened by some program but will not
actually work since you did not provide the argument. An example of
the argument is hdc=ide-scsi that means: create a faked SCSI device
controller and a fakes device chain and a faked SCSI disk device that
the emulator should map to the hdc device.
6. About the matrox driver. I am not an owner of a matrox card but I
understood that XFree requires a driver for that board that is
available from the matrox web site.
7. The CVS for the documentation is not available only under Linux. You
use any CVS client on any unices or user WinCVS under MS-Windows.
Moreover you have the HTTP interface in http://cvs.debian.org/
8. The apt.conf file is documented in man. To have more information just
type 'man apt.conf'. It this doesn't show up, then prabably you have
a misconfigured man. Did you tried mandb?
9. mail. On a Debian system you need at least local mail in order to
deliver mail from cron. If you use exim, then you may choice from a
menu that will permit you a 'local delivery only' installation. You
may run eximconfig anytime to change it.
10. Security update. This a different source for your apt. You may
insert it in /etc/apt/sources.list and then run the apt frontend you
like. The question about using root is strange: you need to have root
privilege to install any package in Debian. There is no special rule
in using security update since they are normal packages that fixes
security bug in a stable distribution like woody.
11. tcpwrapper is way to secure your network connected machine at
application level. To have more information on it look for the
package tcpd.
12. The X resolution is shown in /var/log/XFree86.0.log. Look for a
line like 'Virtual size is 1024x768 (pitch 1024)'. You may also find
the actual resolution using the command xdpyinfo.
13. When you boot your system using the Debian kernel than you have a
lot of driver installed. This is the reason that during boot you see
many SCSI drivers trying to find its own hordware. To avoid it you
have to recompile your kernel without these drivers.
14. The kernel source are available in a *BINARY* package and not only
in the source package. You may install it via the package
kernel-source with the correct version (the one you like.)
Hope this help. At least for some problems.
Bye,
Giuseppe